My nephew....how is the conversion?

[caredock]

I just got a new lens. The 85 f1.8 and I really like it. The lighting is all natural...window light. How do you think the conversion to black and white is? Would you have done anything different? opinions appreciated

[adysko]

Cute face. I like the fist one better. The lens seems great to me and the light is not bad either. I am not an expert in mono conversion but the photos seem a bit on the dark side and flat. Since you allow your photos to be edited I had a short go at your second picture. What do you think?

[AndreaBFS]

That first shot has great eye contact. I really like it! I bumped up the contrast and brightness a bit. You'd be able to do a better job with the original, but it shows you where I would go with it. Your embedded profile was wonky -- I think it was dot grain. I'm not sure where that came from, but I switched it to sRGB.

[caredock]

adysko...I see how your's makes the face pop more. I like it. What makes a photo appear flat? I'm still learning...and I see that my photos seem flat. Is it the camera(will be getting a new one soon..I shoot with a rebel) or the way I am editing? I really want to be able to produce images that don't look flat :P

Andrea. Thanks. I like what you did too. I keep going back to this picture and trying to make it better but I seem to do more harm than good ..LOL I'm not sure about the color file on my image. I shot in raw. When saving as a jpg I changed to 8 bit color mode instead of 16 to be able to save as a jpg. I don't know much about embedded profiles..LOL I saved the file onto my photobucket account. I'm clueless when it comes to this stuff. Should I have saved the picture differently?

For the heck of it I played around with one of the pictures a little more. I think I'm getting better at this.

[coopergirl]

i'm no expert and just joined this forum a couple days ago... but i think the last picture is the best of all of them.

[adysko]

Originally Posted by caredock

For the heck of it I played around with one of the pictures a little more. I think I'm getting better at this.

WOW, your are certainly getting better. Well done! It helps if you have an original raw file. Have you done something special to the eyes? What makes a photo flat is lack of contrast in the first place but it seems you have already figured this one out and know how improve it. It is generally much more difficult to reduce contrast which is too high due to harsh lighting.
Also, simple desaturation does leave images look flat most of the time. One of the popular techniques is to use channel mixer instead.

This example just shows that upgrading the camera is likely to make much less of a difference to your images than you expect. Tests have been done where a print from a compact camera was compared with the one from a top of the range DSLR and people had difficulties in deciding which one was better
Where you will certainly benefit from an upgrade is other features like speed of focusing, ergonomics, perhaps higher ISO range and a few other useful extras but image quality straight from the camera in average lighting conditions may be marginal so do not expect miracles. Most of the fabulous popping-out-of-the-screen shots here are due to post processing.

[caredock]

Thanks . I followed a tutorial on how to make eyes stand out more. Seems to have worked. Online photoshop tutorials have been a big help in post processing.

Also thanks for the info. Some day I"ll be able know all this and not have so many questions. :P

[adysko]

Yes, one day hopefully I will not have so many questions too
By the way, can you post a link to this tutorial on the eyes improvement?

[dmmiller]

Cute shot.. definately has the "awwwww" factor.

[caredock]

Thanks dmmiller.

adysko...here's the tutorial I followed for the eyes above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtpr92CipQc

[adysko]

Thanks! Good stuff.

[navy.wife_2004]

the edits pop much more. what a cutie.